York & North Yorkshire Heritage Watch

Protecting the heritage of the City of York and across the rural county of North Yorkshire

Our Mission

Heritage crime is any offence which harms the value of heritage assets and their settings. It covers a wide variety of criminal activity which damages assets of historical interest and can lead to the loss of a piece of our heritage forever. Heritage sites can be any historical location such as listed buildings, war memorials, museums that contain historical artefacts, churches, ancient battle sites, castles and stately homes.

The City of York and the beautiful county of North Yorkshire have hundreds if not thousands of heritage sites and the York & North Yorkshire Heritage Watch scheme aims to protect these through the active involvement of the community. By joining the Heritage Watch scheme you can become the eyes and ears of these sites and actively help to fight heritage crime by reporting suspicious behaviour and providing us with information regarding what is happening in and around your heritage sites.

We understand that the resource demands that our being placed on our police and other public services, makes it extremely difficult for them to have a regular constant presence in our communities, and the very large and rural geography of the county of North Yorkshire really does make policing these areas challenging. By providing a platform for sharing information and best practice in relation to how to prevent crime at heritage sites, we can make a real difference to the likelihood of a crime taking place.

If you are interested in joining the scheme, please get in touch using the contact form in the menu bar. We look forward to hearing from you soon.